Francesca Rudkin: Let's respect our teachers

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

According to an article in the NZ Herald this morning, fewer people want to be teachers.

Teacher education is still a popular field of study, but both Canterbury and Otago Universities have seen a decline in teaching student enrolments over the past four years.

Provisional data shows Canterbury has 964 students enrolled in a course in 2025, down from 1281 four years ago.

Otago has followed a similar trend, with student numbers dropping from 620 to 495 in the same period.

National Polytech, Te Pukenga, has seen the lowest number of first year teaching students since it formed in 2020.

It’s not the best news when we are facing a teacher shortage is it? PPTA President Chris Abercrombie said the downward trend is extremely worrying.

I’m not surprised by this trajectory.

All we seem to hear about are issues around pay, conditions, and the challenge of changes to the curriculum.

And then there are the parents who don’t have the time to support their children in their education but complain about teachers when their children don’t reach their expectations.

I can understand pay and conditions being a red flag for someone heading into teaching, but teachers have worked hard advocating for themselves when it comes to pay, and the government has accepted conditions need to improve.

But it’s in all our best interests that we attract good people, passionate about education, to the profession, and while we may not be able to do much about the pay and conditions outside a general election, we can do something to push back on the shift in attitude towards teachers which has crept in over recent years, preventing some from considering the idea of being a teacher.

Chris Abercrombie said, “One of the things we often hear is the lack of respect from the community, from politicians, and people are like, well, why do I want to go into a profession that has that.”

As in any industry, there are great teachers, good teachers, and some who may be a bit useless.

But we need to be championing our teachers.

Teachers play a massive, formulative role in our children’s lives.

Some even change a young person’s life, or what our kids believe is possible.

Just over 3 years ago, a young lady rather close to me started high school, had a bit of a hiccup, and was at school for about half of years 9 and 10.

In year 11 she started a new school, and this year she aims to wrap up school and complete year 13 a year early, before heading to university to do a science degree.

There isn’t a person who knows what she’s been through who isn’t stunned by this turn around.

A lot of it is down to this remarkable young lady – she has worked hard to get back on track and loves to study - but it’s also thanks to a series of extraordinary teachers that she is where she is today.

So, if we want the best outcome for our children and their future, we can start by showing some respect, and champion all the good teachers out there.

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